white parka

THAT NIGHT I went out for a stroll in the early evening snow. I walked up by the new church and then turned left and came around by the great department store or shopping center or ostukeskus. Whatever they are calling it these days. Half a dozen underwear models fawned over me from a lit-up billboard and Christmas lights were blinking everywhere. At the crosswalk, there was a red light and I stood and waited in the cold. There was a girl waiting on the other side of the street, in the snow and wind, all dressed in white. She wore a white parka, which was pulled up over her golden hair, and she had on white pants and white snow boots.

For a moment, I was reminded of Dulcinea. Dulcinea, love of loves, muse of muses. She always had such a brisk and wild energy to her. She was like a little chunk of sunlight, warming everything wherever she went. I then wished that Dulcinea was the one standing across from me. I imagined how beautiful she would look with such a white parka and such white boots. When was the last time I saw her? In the summer. She walked by me in the park, and her eyes were the same. They were always so kind, her eyes. Dulcinea’s eyes are impossible to forget.

They’re like stars.

I remembered those words she had typed out to me long ago. “With you, it’s always some kind of soup.” But the girl standing across from me wasn’t her. It was just someone else. Some random pedestrian. The light turned green and we walked by each other. The girl in the white parka wasn’t Dulcinea. She looked nothing like her.

ingrian girls

WE WERE TRYING to escape. From what I don’t know. It was through some kind of cave system, or tunnel. I cannot say if it was man-made or not. What I do remember is that I was surrounded by Ingrian girls. Dozens of them, maybe. Hundreds. There were so many of them, and they were all trying to climb out of the passageway and get out into the cold but welcoming December air. I don’t know what their names were, but they seemed to have been of uniform age and appearance. They had red curly hair and their skin was milk white. They wore black shirts and blue jeans. They were beautiful but desperate and very aggressive.

One Ingrian girl climbed up my back and then sort of pushed herself over my head, as if doing some kind of acrobatic trick. and another pushed by my arms. There were just so many of them. I can’t say anything was really inviting about the thing. It was a stampede. Ingria was the historical name of the territory connecting what is now Estonia with the current Finnish border. It covers the swampy area where Peter the Great decided to build his imperial city.

The only hint at civilization in the cave was an old monument that had been built into the walls. Words were chiselled into the granite, maybe about the Estonian War of Independence, or perhaps the Finnish Winter War, but I could not read them. I only gripped the stone as I pulled myself out into the light. A dozen or so Ingrian girls were already standing there looking down at me. I remember their curly red hair, the slope of their faces, those haunting blue eyes.

I remember how uncompromising they all were.

kermit

SOMEHOW, I wound up visiting Kermit Haas at his art studio on the opposite side of the lake. I think he picked me up after a plane connected to a local agricultural company had flown over the coastal plain and sprayed it with pesticides. I happened to be outside when that happened, by a lake-side vacation home, and standing among the golden reeds at sunset when that goop rained down upon me. I remember reaching and touching the back of my neck and scraping off a handful of green slime from the pesticide plane. It was like Agent Orange or something. I began to worry about my health after that and if I had been exposed to something really toxic.

But then Kermit picked me up in his car and we drove off.

It was actually a single-storey, Scandinavian style art studio. I didn’t realize that Kermit had so many people working for him. He gave me a towel to clean myself from the green goop, and his young assistant brought me a mug of coffee. A simple, spare, well-lit place. It was almost as if Ikea had done the interior, but the quality of the desks and bookshelves was many times higher, and I am sure he had designed every cranny of that place. Kermit is this kind of engaging character. He’s about 10 years older than me. He studied at an art school in France. He has long, graying hair, and likes to wear sweaters and scarves, when the weather requires it. Kermit has this vague sort of Europeanness about him. He’s not really Estonian or French. He is sort of like one of those in-flight magazines on Finnair or Lufthansa. It feels European, it looks European, and it even smells European, but you can’t really say why it’s so European.

The coffee was good and strong, but a little too hot, and I was clumsy after the plane pesticide incident. I spilled some coffee on a nearby table, and a little ran off onto the floor, where it pooled. Urmas’s assistant immediately went to fetch a towel to clean it up, and I began to apologize. But then I noticed that the wet spot was only growing, and soon a clear water began to roll into the studio. It was the water from the lake! It was rising! The water was rolling in, and it was warm and ankle deep. This had not been from the coffee. “We need to get out of here,” said Kermit. “And quick!” We ran to his car. He stuffed a dozen precious canvases into the trunk. My computer bag was already soaked, and I was sure the electronics were ruined. “Good thing all of my work is on Google Docs,” I said. “I am sure your things will be fine,” Kermit responded. I tossed my guitar in the back too. It was in an odd, turtle-shaped case I had never seen before. Then we all jumped into the car and sped away, to escape the flood.

I don’t know what happened to that assistant though. She was too willing to resolve all of our problems. Maybe she stayed behind? Maybe she was tasked with cleaning up after the flood?

She’s probably still there.